scholarly journals TURAC—A New Instrument Package for Radiation Budget Measurements and Cloud Detection

2005 ◽  
Vol 22 (10) ◽  
pp. 1473-1479 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Ruckstuhl ◽  
R. Philipona

Abstract Atmospheric radiation flux measurements and the resulting surface radiation budget are important quantities for greenhouse effect and climate change investigations. Accurate net shortwave and longwave fluxes, in conjunction with numerical algorithms, also allow monitoring of the radiative effect of clouds and the nowcasting of the cloud amount. To achieve certain advantages on the accuracy of flux measurements a new instrument is developed that measures downward and upward shortwave and longwave radiation with the same sensors. Two high-quality instruments—a pyranometer for shortwave and a pyrgeometer for longwave measurements—are mounted on a pivotable sensor head, which is rotated up and down in 10-min intervals. To keep the instrument domes free from dew and ice, and to minimize the pyranometer thermal offset, both sensors are ventilated with slightly heated air. Additionally, a ventilated temperature and humidity sensor is integrated in the new instrument. The combination of measurements of radiation fluxes, temperature, and humidity allows for instrument use for autonomous and automatic cloud amount detection. The Temperature, Humidity, Radiation and Clouds (TURAC) sensor has been successfully tested under harsh alpine winter conditions, as well as under moderate lowland conditions. Comparisons to reference instruments showed all radiation fluxes to be within a maximum bias and rms difference of 1.6% or 1.4 W m−2 on daily averages.

1985 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 238-241 ◽  
Author(s):  
Takashi Yamanouchi ◽  
Sadao Kawaguchi

Effects of drifting snow are examined from measurements of radiation fluxes at Mizuho Station in the katabatic wind zone, Antarctica. A good correlation is found between the difference of downward longwave fluxes measured at two heights and wind speed used as an index of drifting snow. The wind increases the downward flux at a rate of 2 W m-2/m s-2 when wind speed is higher than 13 m/s. Drifting snow suppresses the net longwave cooling at the surface. Direct solar radiation is depleted greatly by the drifting snow; however, the global flux decreases only slightly, compensated by the large increase of the diffuse flux, at a rate of about 1% for each 1 m/s increase in wind speed. At Mizuho Station, the effect on longwave radiation prevails throughout the year. The relation between snow drift content and wind speed is obtained from shortwave optical depth measurements as a function of wind speed. A simple parameterization of radiative properties is given.


2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (24) ◽  
pp. 15095-15119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Mackie ◽  
Paul I. Palmer ◽  
Helen Brindley

Abstract. We use observations of surface and top-of-the-atmosphere (TOA) broadband radiation fluxes determined from the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement programme mobile facility, the Geostationary Earth Radiation Budget (GERB) and Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI) instruments and a range of meteorological variables at a site in the Sahel to test the ability of the ECMWF Integrated Forecasting System cycle 43r1 to describe energy budget variability. The model has daily average biases of −12 and 18 W m−2 for outgoing longwave and reflected shortwave TOA radiation fluxes, respectively. At the surface, the daily average bias is 12(13) W m−2 for the longwave downwelling (upwelling) radiation flux and −21(−13) W m−2 for the shortwave downwelling (upwelling) radiation flux. Using multivariate linear models of observation–model differences, we attribute radiation flux discrepancies to physical processes, and link surface and TOA fluxes. We find that model biases in surface radiation fluxes are mainly due to a low bias in ice water path (IWP), poor description of surface albedo and model–observation differences in surface temperature. We also attribute observed discrepancies in the radiation fluxes, particularly during the dry season, to the misrepresentation of aerosol fields in the model from use of a climatology instead of a dynamic approach. At the TOA, the low IWP impacts the amount of reflected shortwave radiation while biases in outgoing longwave radiation are additionally coupled to discrepancies in the surface upwelling longwave flux and atmospheric humidity.


1985 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 238-241 ◽  
Author(s):  
Takashi Yamanouchi ◽  
Sadao Kawaguchi

Effects of drifting snow are examined from measurements of radiation fluxes at Mizuho Station in the katabatic wind zone, Antarctica. A good correlation is found between the difference of downward longwave fluxes measured at two heights and wind speed used as an index of drifting snow. The wind increases the downward flux at a rate of 2 W m-2/m s-2when wind speed is higher than 13 m/s. Drifting snow suppresses the net longwave cooling at the surface. Direct solar radiation is depleted greatly by the drifting snow; however, the global flux decreases only slightly, compensated by the large increase of the diffuse flux, at a rate of about 1% for each 1 m/s increase in wind speed. At Mizuho Station, the effect on longwave radiation prevails throughout the year. The relation between snow drift content and wind speed is obtained from shortwave optical depth measurements as a function of wind speed. A simple parameterization of radiative properties is given.


Author(s):  
S. V. S. Sai Krishna ◽  
P. Manavalan ◽  
P. V. N. Rao

Daily net surface radiation fluxes are estimated for Indian land mass at spatial grid intervals of 0.1 degree. Two approaches are employed to obtain daily net radiation for four sample days viz., November 19, 2013, December 16, 2013, January 8, 2014 and March 20, 2014. Both the approaches compute net shortwave and net longwave fluxes, separately and sum them up to obtain net radiation. The first approach computes net shortwave radiation using daily insolation product of Kalpana VHRR and 15 days time composited broadband albedo product of Oceansat OCM2. The net outgoing longwave radiation is computed using Stefan Boltzmann equation corrected for humidity and cloudiness. In the second approach, instantaneous clear-sky net-shortwave radiation is estimated using computed clear-sky incoming shortwave radiation and the gridded MODIS 16-day time composited albedo product. The net longwave radiation is obtained by estimating outgoing and incoming longwave radiation fluxes, independently. In this, MODIS derived surface emissivity and skin temperature parameters are used for estimating outgoing longwave radiation component. In both the approaches, surface air temperature data required for estimation of net longwave radiation fluxes are extracted from India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) Automatic Weather Station (AWS) records. Estimates by the two different approaches are evaluated by comparing daily net radiation fluxes with CERES based estimates corresponding to the sample days, through statistical measures. The estimated all sky daily net radiation using the first approach compared well with CERES SYN1deg daily average net radiation with r<sup>2</sup> values of the order of 0.7 and RMS errors of the order of 8&ndash;16 w/m<sup>2</sup>.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 1834
Author(s):  
Boxiong Qin ◽  
Biao Cao ◽  
Hua Li ◽  
Zunjian Bian ◽  
Tian Hu ◽  
...  

Surface upward longwave radiation (SULR) is a critical component in the calculation of the Earth’s surface radiation budget. Multiple clear-sky SULR estimation methods have been developed for high-spatial resolution satellite observations. Here, we comprehensively evaluated six SULR estimation methods, including the temperature-emissivity physical methods with the input of the MYD11/MYD21 (TE-MYD11/TE-MYD21), the hybrid methods with top-of-atmosphere (TOA) linear/nonlinear/artificial neural network regressions (TOA-LIN/TOA-NLIN/TOA-ANN), and the hybrid method with bottom-of-atmosphere (BOA) linear regression (BOA-LIN). The recently released MYD21 product and the BOA-LIN—a newly developed method that considers the spatial heterogeneity of the atmosphere—is used initially to estimate SULR. In addition, the four hybrid methods were compared with simulated datasets. All the six methods were evaluated using the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) products and the Surface Radiation Budget Network (SURFRAD) in situ measurements. Simulation analysis shows that the BOA-LIN is the best one among four hybrid methods with accurate atmospheric profiles as input. Comparison of all the six methods shows that the TE-MYD21 performed the best, with a root mean square error (RMSE) and mean bias error (MBE) of 14.0 and −0.2 W/m2, respectively. The RMSE of BOA-LIN, TOA-NLIN, TOA-LIN, TOA-ANN, and TE-MYD11 are equal to 15.2, 16.1, 17.2, 21.2, and 18.5 W/m2, respectively. TE-MYD21 has a much better accuracy than the TE-MYD11 over barren surfaces (NDVI < 0.3) and a similar accuracy over non-barren surfaces (NDVI ≥ 0.3). BOA-LIN is more stable over varying water vapor conditions, compared to other hybrid methods. We conclude that this study provides a valuable reference for choosing the suitable estimation method in the SULR product generation.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chi-Han Cheng ◽  
Fidelia Nnadi

Accurate estimate of the surface longwave radiation is important for the surface radiation budget, which in turn controls evaporation and sensible heat fluxes. Regional land use changes can impact local weather conditions; for example, heterogeneous land use patterns and temporal changes in atmospheric circulation patterns would affect air temperature and water vapor pressure, which are more commonly used as inputs in existing models for estimating downward longwave radiation (LWd). In this study, first, we analyzed the cloud cover and land use covers impacts onLWd. Next,LWdon all-sky conditions were developed by using the existing land use-adapted model and cloud cover data from the region of Saint Johns River Water Management District (SJRWMD), FL. The results show that factors, such as, seasonal effects, cloud cover, and land use, are of importance in the estimation ofLWdand they cannot be ignored when developing a model forLWdprediction. The all-sky land use-adapted model with all factors taken into account performs better than other existing models statistically. The results of the statistical analyses indicated that the BIAS, RMSE, MAE, and PMRE are −0.18 Wm−2, 10.81 Wm−2, 8.00 Wm−2, and 2.30%; −2.61 Wm−2, 14.45 Wm−2, 10.64 Wm−2, and 3.19%; −0.07 Wm−2, 10.53 Wm−2, 8.03 Wm−2, and 2.27%; and −0.62 Wm−2, 13.97 Wm−2, 9.76 Wm−2, and 2.87% for urban, rangeland, agricultural, and wetland areas, respectively.


2008 ◽  
Vol 136 (7) ◽  
pp. 2557-2575 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akihiko Shimpo ◽  
Masao Kanamitsu ◽  
Sam F. Iacobellis ◽  
Song-You Hong

Abstract The impacts of four stratiform cloud parameterizations on seasonal mean fields are investigated using the global version of the Experimental Climate Prediction Center (ECPC) global-to-regional forecast system (G-RSM). The simulated fields are compared with the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) data for clouds, the Global Precipitation Climatology Project data for precipitation, the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment and the Surface Radiation Budget data for radiation, and the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP)–Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project (AMIP-II) Reanalysis (R-2) for temperature. Compared to observations, no stratiform cloud parameterization performed better in simulating all aspects of clouds, temperature, precipitation, and radiation fluxes. There are strong interactions between parameterized stratiform clouds and boundary layer clouds and convection, resulting in changes in low-level cloudiness and precipitation in the simulations. When the simulations are compared with ISCCP cloudiness and cloud water, and the NCEP/DOE R-2 relative humidity, the cloud amounts simulated by all four cloud schemes depend mostly on relative humidity with less dependency on the model’s cloud water, while the observed cloud amount is more strongly dependent on cloud water than relative humidity, suggesting that cloud parameterizations and the simulation of cloud water require further improvement.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ge Wang ◽  
Lin Han

&lt;p&gt;This study analyses the diurnal seasonal mean and the seasonal and annual variation in the radiation budget at the Ali Meteorological Bureau observation station in the northern Tibetan Plateau for 2019. The results indicate that the daily average variation in incidental shortwave and reflected radiation across all seasons in the Ali area had typical unimodal symmetry. The average daily variation in incidental shortwave radiation was in phase with reflected radiation, but the amplitude of the incidental shortwave radiation was greater than that of reflected radiation. The daily amplitude, daily average, and monthly average upwelling longwave radiation were greater than those for downwelling radiation, and the diurnal cycle of downwelling atmospheric radiation lagged behind that of upwelling longwave radiation. The daily amplitude of surface net radiation in winter in the Ali area was less than in other seasons, as expected, and the seasonal transformation had a great impact on the net radiation for this region. The net radiative energy at the surface was highest in late spring and early summer, which played a decisive role in the formation of terrestrial and atmospheric heating.&lt;/p&gt;


2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (5) ◽  
pp. 4423-4457
Author(s):  
A. Roesch ◽  
M. Wild ◽  
A. Ohmura ◽  
E. G. Dutton ◽  
C. N. Long ◽  
...  

Abstract. The integrity of the Baseline Surface Radiation Network (BSRN) radiation monthly averages are assessed by investigating the impact on monthly means due to the frequency of data gaps caused by missing or discarded high time resolution data. The monthly statistics, especially means, are considered to be important and useful values for climate research, model performance evaluations and for assessing the quality of satellite (time- and space-averaged) data products. The study investigates the spread in different algorithms that have been applied for the computation of monthly means from 1-min values. The paper reveals that the computation of monthly means from 1-min observations distinctly depends on the method utilized to account for the missing data. The intra-method difference generally increases with an increasing fraction of missing data. We found that a substantial fraction of the radiation fluxes observed at BSRN sites is either missing or flagged as questionable. The percentage of missing data is 4.4%, 13.0%, and 6.5% for global radiation, direct shortwave radiation, and downwelling longwave radiation, respectively. Most flagged data in the shortwave are due to nighttime instrumental noise and can reasonably be set to zero after correcting for thermal offsets in the daytime data. The study demonstrates that the handling of flagged data clearly impacts on monthly mean estimates obtained with different methods. We showed that the spread of monthly shortwave fluxes is generally clearly higher than for downwelling longwave radiation. Overall, BSRN observations provide sufficient accuracy and completeness for reliable estimates of monthly mean values. However, the value of future data could be further increased by reducing the frequency of data gaps and the number of outliers. It is shown that two independent methods for accounting for the diurnal and seasonal variations in the missing data permit consistent monthly means to within less than one Wm−2 in most cases. The authors suggest using a standardized method for the computation of monthly means which addresses diurnal variations in the missing data in order to avoid a mismatch of future published monthly mean radiation fluxes from BSRN.


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